Snapped: Women Who Murder - Judy Naylor

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

A 62-year-old man bails his stepdaughter out of jail for attempted murder and is soon found dead.Season 31, Episode 17Originally aired: Nov 6, 2022Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Get ready for Las Vegas style action at Bet MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games and signature Bet MGM service, there's no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600

to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery exposes a multi-billion dollar criminal empire. Coming Ontario. app or wherever you get your podcasts. A successful business owner returns from a dream vacation only to be met with a hail of gunfire. The last thing in his mind is that somebody is attempting to kill him. His valued employee may be victim number two. She's seemingly fallen off the face of the earth.

But did he trust the wrong person? Somebody had access to the house. Somebody he trusted. As the deadly plot unravels, alliances shift. Are they going to stay loyal and true to each other, or now is it all about me? What point does blood loyalty stop and doing the right thing start?

And investigators discover how one crime plants the seeds of another. She said, you know, your grandfather's not going to be here much longer. And I said, what do you mean? Rumors of a twisted seduction surface. She's agreeing to have a sexual relationship with someone to be bailed out.

I didn't really know how to take all that. It was a shocker to me. That is a level of sociopathy that is, fortunately, not too common. This wasn't brutal. This was just sick. January 12, 2004. It's late afternoon in Robeson County, North Carolina, when dispatch receives a frantic 911 call reporting shots fired outside a local bus company. Sheriff's deputies and paramedics race to the scene.

This crime occurred in a rural area. It's so far out there that by the time the officers responded out there, the suspects were already gone. First responders arrive at the scene to find the owner of the bus company sitting in his car, which is now riddled with bullet holes. He's visibly shaken, but fortunately only his hand seems to be injured. He just came back from vacation.

The last thing in his mind is that somebody is attempting to kill him. First thing you want to do is secure the scene. And then investigators will look for any shell casings, projectiles, skid marks from a vehicle, see if there's any witnesses nearby, anybody have any outside cameras. Authorities find a scattering of shotgun pellets that have pierced the vehicle

and three plastic shell casings. You want to get a statement from the victim, get the story, and even develop a timeline around the situation. The victim says he goes on vacation. Have to fly him back into Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He makes his drive back home to Lumberton. He lives above his bus company that he owns. Upon arriving home and exiting his vehicle, he hears gunshots.

He immediately falls back into the vehicle. They're just rolling by and they're firing shots. They see a target and they're firing shots at the target. There's attempted murder here. The shooter sped off, and that's when the owner of the bus company says he managed to dial 911. He said it sounded like a shotgun that caused his injuries, but he was not able to see everything and everyone that was involved in that. The victim did not see the shooter and claims he has no idea who might want him dead.

Back in 2004, that area was known for a lot of robberies, drugs, breaking in to residents, homicides. It's very common in the drug trade to have drive-by shootings into the car of someone who's dealing drugs. A quick background check tells investigators that the bus company owner's record is clean. There was no evidence he was involved in drugs. He did not appear to be involved in any type of criminal activity. However, investigators don't believe this was just a random act of violence. He was shot while getting out of his car. What made sense was it was somebody who

knew his everyday activities, knew where he lived, when he would be pulling into his driveway, that sort of thing. Once the victim is transported to the hospital, the deputies check the bus company building itself to look for possible signs of a robbery. However, the door is locked and there are no signs of forced entry. When there's no robbery attempt, there's no break-in attempt, that really, again, focus you back at the victim. Who in this victim's inner circle would gain if this victim should suddenly die? The next morning, the recovering owner of the bus company calls investigators in a panic. He is concerned about his employee, 38-year-old Judy Naylor.

He hasn't been able to reach her for several days. He went on vacation and left her with the business. He entrusted her. This is someone he looks to to run his business, and yet after he is shot, nobody can get in touch with her. Her boss is worried that whoever shot at him may have come for Judy Naylor, too. Judy was born and raised

in the Cumberland County, Robeson County area. Judy was the older of two siblings. Her younger brother, Kenneth, they had a close relationship. Judy's mother and father separated while she was in her teens. I know Willie, my grandfather, Papa Willie, he had a drinking problem. And he could tell it was kind of a conflicting environment for her growing up, definitely after the divorce.

I think she had somewhat of a troubled background. I know that her mother at times had some mental health issues. Eventually, Judy's mother Catherine remarried a man named James Croxton, and Judy decided to leave home in search of independence. She didn't graduate high school. She dropped out at 17. She had me at 19. And my dad was 24.

He was in the Air Force. They met at a party in Fayetteville, and obviously, you know, hit it off. And, you know, that's when I came about. But Judy and Andrew San Miguel's marriage didn't last long. They separated when I was two. I lived with my dad at a younger age and my mom only had me during the summer. My dad lived rough.

It wasn't a very good environment. He finally told me to go stay with my mom and so I did. And I was happy. My mom was very supportive, playing sports in school. She was always there cheering me on. Judy worked hard to provide for her family, building what would ultimately become a decades long career in the automotive industry.

She wanted to do better for me than what she had. She handled financing and accounts. And I would say, not graduating high school, my mom really accomplished a lot. Although Judy left home at an early age, over the years, her mother, Catherine, and her stepfather became very involved in raising Michael. During the summer, I would go to work

with my grandfather, James Croxen. He was a big part of my life. He was a plumber and he would take me to work with him. You know, he showed me a lot. Anytime mom was leaving a relationship or in between relationships, however you want to call it, you know, we stayed there. So we were real close. In 2002, Michael graduated high school and moved away to start his own family. It was around that time that Judy began dating

47-year-old Donald Lee McPhail. Donald grew up in a lumber bridge area. She felt that Donald was her soulmate and her true love. After six months, Judy and Donald married. And in 2003, Judy was hired as an office manager at a bus company business in Lumberton, North Carolina. He was impressed by her, impressed by the work that she did. Eventually she became the bookkeeper.

When she started working there, you know, I felt, you know, I was happy for her. But after four months in her new role, that world is turned upside down on January 12, 2004, when a drive-by shooting nearly kills Judy's boss and Judy herself is nowhere to be found. After this happens to him, he nor anyone else can get in touch with Judy. They put out a ball over for Judy Nailer, which is a be on the lookout. You got to worry.

Whoever pulled the trigger, they could cause more damage now. Coming up... Detectives learn Judy Nailer isn't the only thing that's vanished. He finds his shotgun missing. Somebody had access to the house. Somebody he trusted. Authorities in rural Robeson County, North Carolina, are investigating the attempted murder of a successful bus company owner. When they discover his bookkeeper, Judy Naylor, is missing. Nobody can get in touch with Judy. For a couple of days, she's seemingly fallen off the face of the earth.

The next day, police receive another frantic phone call from the victim to report something else is missing. He finds his shotgun missing, and the weapon used to shoot at him is a shotgun. And that's not all. He finds out that business checks have been stolen and he finds no forced entry into his office at his apartment upstairs. For investigators, that can only mean one thing. Somebody had access to the house.

Somebody he trusted. The only people that had access to where the shotgun was at was going to be people that worked there in the business. Judy is keeping the books for him, so she obviously has access. She works there, so she has access to the shotgun and other property that's there inside the business. He then begins looking at his bank account.

He finds that there's been 21 checks, company checks written out to Judy and her husband, Donald, while he was out of the country. Judy's boss turns over company bank statements to investigators for them to study. They've been written to Judy and her husband on his account, totaling $19,000. That certainly was an important fact, but there was a lot more investigating to do because she was the bookkeeper.

There could have been a valid reason for this, And we didn't know whether or not that was related to the shooting or not. Investigators try to track down a home address for Judy and Donald McPhail, but there's a problem. They're living with either her mother, her father. They're bouncing around from houses. So there's no steady electricity's in my name here. I get mail here type thing.

While investigators dig deeper into Judy's background, they quickly discover this unassuming bookkeeper has had her fair share of trouble. When looking at her criminal record, she had some property crime and drug crime that dated back ten or so years before this incident happened. My mom had a crack addiction and it was something I grew up with you know so I was exposed to it. I did look at the records. She had a cocaine problem.

And drug problems are frequently a motivation for theft. Judy's family members tell detectives that her history of bad behavior created a rift long ago. She had a history of breaking into her own mother and father's house, stealing their jewelry, plawning their jewelry. The relationship with her family appeared to be strained because of how Judy treated Katherine,

her mother. Judy had always had a rocky relationship with her mother from all accounts. There have been reports of physical assaults on her mother and because of her drug habits and because of her stealing from the family. I was a teenager when I realized, you know, what she was doing.

It had been an addiction that she'd kind of hid most of my life or tried to hide. She was battling demons and, you know, of course we didn't talk about it. You know, I didn't bring it up. And, you know, of course we didn't talk about it. You know, I didn't bring it up. As sheriff's investigators study Judy's file, one recent incident stands out.

She allegedly stole $7,000 in jewelry from her stepfather. Theft was reported to have taken place on December 30th, 2003. Theft was reported to have taken place on December 30, 2003. She was arrested, but charges eventually were dropped because her mother, Catherine, and her stepfather James didn't want to pursue charges. The theft of the checks, the writing of the forged checks took place like in the first week or so of January 2004, shortly before the bus company owner came back from vacation. When you have that drug issue fueling you, there's no telling what a person is subject

to do. Judy Naylor had access to the accounts, Lee's Lumberton PD, to realize she's been forging the checks and cashing them. When Judy's boss learns of her previous run-ins with the law, he is stunned. I'm sure he felt extremely betrayed because he hired her under good faith, thinking that she was going to do the right thing for him. And I'm sure it kind of caught him really off guard. Judy is his bookkeeper, someone who is close to him. And it starts to be a lot of circumstantial evidence

that Judy and her husband Donald were involved in his shooting. I mean, she's disappeared after the crime. We as investigators needed to talk with her. Two weeks after the drive-by shooting, the statewide search for Judy Naylor leads to an area motel. January 26, 2004, a Motel 6 employee called the Robinson County Sheriff's Office in reference to a disturbance in one of the rooms. Upon arrival, deputies identified the two people involved in the disturbance as Junity Nailer and Donald McFarill. They signed into a hotel with their names.

I mean, that wasn't the smartest move to make if you're on the run. When deputies enter the room, they find Judy is extremely sick. She's tried to harm herself, kill herself, you know, by drinking antifreeze. There's no reason for antifreeze to be in a motel room. So it's either one or both of them were thinking about committing suicide.

Coming up... Paramedics race to save Judy's life while authorities demand answers from Donald McPhail. The motive clearly was money. They got desperate and then I guess they felt they couldn't stop. And Judy's son received some troubling news. I was out of town at the time and my grandmother called me crying. What if everything we thought we knew about justice was wrong? In This Is Actually Happening's new series, A World Beyond Revenge, we explore a radical

idea that justice can be about healing, not just punishment. Through five powerful stories, we meet people who've experienced unimaginable harm, and those who caused it, as they come together to seek something radical. Healing. From a man tortured for a crime he didn't commit, to a woman who misidentified her attacker. These stories will change the way you think about justice, forgiveness, and the possibility of a better world. Follow This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to This Is Actually Happening ad-free right now by joining Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to This Is Actually Happening,

ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. What's up guys, it's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

And I don't mean just friends, I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on. And now I have my own YouTube channel. So follow, watch, and listen to Baby, This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch full episodes on YouTube

and you can listen to Baby, This is Kiki Palmer early and at free right now by joining Wondery. And where are my headphones? Because it's time to get into it. Holla at your girl. January 26, 2004. Investigators with the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office locate Judy Naylor and her husband, Donald McPhail,

at a rundown motel in Robeson County. Donald is taken in for questioning while Judy is rushed to the hospital after consuming antifreeze. I was out of town working in Atlanta at the time, and my grandmother called me crying. My mother was in hospital. I don't know if they were on a drug binge

and they were ready to end it. I don't know what their thoughts were. We interviewed Donald. He goes ahead and gives a statement to law enforcement. In that statement, he's very forthcoming. Donald admits to his involvement in the attempted murder. Judy's boss. He admits to his involvement in the attempted murder of Judy's boss. He admits to stealing the gun.

He admits to writing the fraudulent checks. And admits that he's the one that pulled the trigger that almost killed the victim. On the morning of January 12, 2004, Donald says Judy contacted the airline to make sure her boss's flight was arriving on time. They stole a shotgun from her boss's apartment at his business. They went down to Myrtle Beach and watched him load his car

to drive back to Lumberton, and they followed him back to Lumberton. As soon as he parked his car, Judy drove past him while Donald fired a volley of shots. The husband fired the shotgun from the backseat of their car at him. One and a half miles down the road, Donald got out and hid the gun near a guardrail. This is attempted murder, so it's not like he's going to be going to prison for life. So his best course of action is to be as cooperative as possible with them. Sheriff's investigators recover the stolen 12-gauge shotgun in the weeds beside the highway.

It appeared to be an accurate representation of what he and Judy did because he implicated himself. He didn't try to put all the blame on her. He said this was a shared idea. When someone is that forthcoming, it can be a mitigating factor that can be used in sentencing and so forth. Four days after Donald's arrest, Judy Naylor's condition

has improved enough that she's allowed to leave the hospital. Deputies immediately bring her to the Robeson County Sheriff's Office for an interview. Judy confessed pretty quickly to the attempted murder of her boss at the bus company. She said that she started writing checks for herself and for her husband, Donald McPhail, while her boss was on vacation. But the boss was coming home and they realized he's going to miss that money.

The motive clearly was money. She was stealing in order to pay for the drugs. In order to keep going to jail over the embezzlement, her and Donald decided to kill him. I'm not sure how much they thought through what they were doing. It didn't really feel very well planned. If he had died, the investigators

probably would have noticed the checks written to Judy Naylor and to Donald McPhail and figured that there's motive for a crime right there and come looking for them. They charge both Judy and her husband, Donald McPhail, with attempted first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, larceny of a firearm, then the fraud. Despite her initial confession, Judy pleads not guilty to the charges. The court grants bail, but with no one to pay it, Judy must remain in jail until her trial.

And then, on February 7, 2004, only a week after Judy's incarceration, tragedy strikes again when her mother, Katherine Croxton, dies unexpectedly. Grandma Kathy had an aneurysm in her head. After my grandmother passed, I would check on my grandfather. He had onset Alzheimer's and he was having trouble paying bills and so I would come over there to help him. Soon after that, Judy's stepfather, her now deceased mother's husband, James Croxton, beginning visiting her in jail. In the months after Katherine's death, James Croxton eventually received

her life insurance proceeds, which was approximately $43,000. Judy became aware of this, and she began trying to encourage James to bail her out of jail while she was awaiting trial. And in May of 2004, he did put up approximately $4,500 to get her out of jail. Judy ended up moving in with James and ate his residence out in Hope Mills. ended up moving in with James and ate his residence out in Hope Mills. While Judy's husband, Donald McPhail, remains behind bars at the Robeson County jail,

Judy enjoys life as a relatively free woman in her stepfather's home. Only Judy's life isn't destined to stay peaceful for long. On November 14, 2004, Judy Naylor called 911 to report that when she tried to get James Croxton up for breakfast, that he was unresponsive in bed and she couldn't wake him up. She sounded distraught on that 911 call. She was sobbing. She was upset. She explained that she just found him this way, that he didn't appear to be breathing. Paramedics race to the scene, but it's too late. It appeared that he had died while he was sleeping. Judy says that her 62-year-old stepfather

had been in poor health. She said that he had had several cardiac events. There were no injuries. There was no obvious trauma to the body. Less than an hour later, as medical personnel are preparing to transport the body from the home, one phone call stops everything. Call is placed to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office to watch command from Judy's stepmother, Donna Naylor.

Donna Naylor is married to Judy's father, Willie. She claims to have information about James Croxton's death. The EMS were still there on the scene. Apparently what had happened is Judy had called a neighbor before she even called 911. And that neighbor had called Donna, which then calls Donna to call the Sheriff's Office. Donna said, you need to look at Judy. She's responsible for this.

She said, if James Croxton was deceased, that Judy Naylor did it. But it was very unusual that they get this type of call from a relative. Donna quickly fills detectives in on Judy's relationship with her stepfather, James. and he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine.

And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. And he was a good friend of mine. Croxton that she had lived rent-free, that she had had an intimate relationship with him, bragged that that intimate relationship was in her mother's bed. This was very troubling and

surprising to hear. Not only is she making this type of arrangement where she's agreeing to have a sexual relationship with someone in order to be bailed out and live with them, but this is her stepfather. When deputies in Cumberland County run a background check on Judy Naylor, they discover she is currently awaiting trial for the attempted murder of her former boss. We found out that Judy was on bond from the Robeson County Detention Center. It brings up a lot of red flags. Authorities immediately locked down the home as a possible crime scene and worked to preserve any evidence. They wanted the body preserved in the same position

and wanted somebody to keep their eyes on Judy the entire time. and wanted somebody to keep their eyes on Judy the entire time. Investigators with the Sheriff's Office confronted Judy with Donna's allegations. Her demeanor did not change. She simply denied that allegation and was cooperative. Right away, Judy gives investigators permission to search the home. They study James Croxton's body before moving to other areas of the residence. They don't find trauma or anything like that.

But what they do find is printed material from a computer that shows that somebody was researching autopsies, death investigations, poisoning. There was sample copies of wills around. They also found documents that had Jane Croxton's signatures traced over several times, as if someone was practicing signatures or something like that.

So this was all very suspicious. Coming up, to catch a killer, family secrets must be revealed. What point does blood loyalty stop in doing the right thing start? He said that she referred to her plan to kill Mr. Croxen as the remodeling job. She is confiding in the people that she trusts most.

You know, the people that she thinks aren't going to ever give me up. Less than a year after making bail for the attempted murder of her former boss in Robeson County, North Carolina, Judy Naylor finds herself at the epicenter of an even more heinous crime when her stepfather and alleged lover, 62-year-old James Croxton, is found dead in a neighboring county. If she did indeed seduce her stepfather and then plotted to kill him, I mean, that is a level of sociopathy that is not too common. An autopsy was performed on November 15th. There did not appear to be a heart attack,

a stroke, a simple explanation like that for Mr. Croxton's death. At this point, his death was undetermined. There was more testing that needed to be done. In the meantime, Judy's stepmother, Donna Naylor, hands over some damning information to detectives. About a week after Mr. Croxton is found deceased in his home, we get a break in the case of Judy's brother, Kenneth. He was in the Department of Corrections. He had wrote letters to Donna. And in these letters, he talks about how Judy was planning to kill Mr. Croxton.

Judy referred to her plan to kill Mr. Croxton as the remodeling job. She had made it known to Kenneth that the remodeling job was how she described the killing of James. Two days before James is killed, she writes a letter to Kenneth and tells Kenneth, I can't take it anymore. It's the remodel and job is gonna happen this week. He gets the letter after James is dead, and Kenneth and Donna never believed that Judy

was capable of doing it. After reading the incriminating letters, investigators sit down with Kenneth Naylor. Kenneth Naylor was serving a kind of a long prison sentence for robbery and being a habitual felon. According to Kenneth, Judy communicated a lot with her brother in prison. Judy told him that the reason that she wanted to get rid of James Croxton was because she wanted to go ahead and get her mother's insurance money.

She had made it known to Kennett that she has chemicals that she's going to use. She tells Kenny in a few months he's going to be dead. One of the chemicals is a powerful paralytic. I did some research. You know, it's painless, odorless, puts you to sleep. 19 days after the death of his grandfather, Judy's son Michael also reaches out to detectives. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. At the time, I felt like I didn't really

have a choice in the matter. My mom kind of put me in a situation where, you know, I ultimately had to say something. Michael tells detectives only a week before James' death, Judy had made an unsettling comment. She said, you know, your grandfather's not going to be here much longer. And I said, what do you mean?

And she went back in the back room and she reached up in the closet and pulled out a box and inside the box was a brown bottle. And she showed it to me. I said, cool reform. She's like, do you know what this is? I'm like, yeah. I was like, that's the stuff you see in movies and TV shows. They put on a rag and you know, they knock, knock people out. It's like, what are you doing that? And she's like, oh, the stuff you see in movies and TV shows. They put on a rag and, you know, they knock people out.

I was like, what are you doing with that? And she's like, oh, don't worry about it. And she put it back up. And I left the house scared, didn't know what to do. You know what I mean? Should I take it seriously? So I left. A week or two later, I got the phone call. Your grandfather's dead.

And immediately, I was like, holy shit, and she killed him. Kenneth and Michael, too, you know, when she told him about some of the plants and the chloroform, both of these folks saying, nah, she's not serious about this thing. She's not going to do that. She is confiding in the people that she trusts the most. You know, the people that she thinks aren't going to ever give me up. What point does blood loyalty stop and doing the right thing start?

and doing the right thing start. Armed with this new information, the medical examiner runs more tests. Approximately a month later, they came back and told us that not only was chloroform present, that it was present in a fatal amount. They also found two small puncture wounds in one of his arms, and at that point, the death was ruled as a homicide. From there, detectives follow the money. We knew that the motive was going to be financial gain. So that's why we started looking at her financial records,

James Croxton financial records. What they discovered is that in October 5th of 2004, James Croxton's credit card had been used to purchase chloroform and succinyl choline. The succinyl choline is a paralytic. We knew that those products were delivered by UPS to the home of Judy and James Croxton just a couple of weeks before his death on November 14th. before his death on November 14.

Investigators also revisit the legal documents found in James' home. They found out August of 2004, he changed a will to basically give all of his assets, all of his money and his insurance to Judy and make her the executor of the will. I directed one of my homicide guys to find the notary that notarized this. And that happens to be another relative of Judy Nail that lives in South Carolina. We found evidence of an email from the notary to Judy,

which samples signatures. And then Judy wrote those signatures on the will as witnesses. Had detectives go to South Carolina to interview the witnesses, and the witnesses admit, I did not sign that. Faced with the evidence, the notary comes clean. She claims she was just trying to do Judy and James a favor. She told us that she was just trying to do Judy and James a favor.

She told us the truth that she did notarize that document and that there was no witnesses, but she said she didn't know what was happening. As for James's signature, investigators suspect Judy forged it while out on bail in August of 2004. For at least three months, three plus months, this is in the works. She goes online and she buys the poison. And then in November, she uses the poison. They put him out so Judy can then put the chloroform on a rag

and just stand over his face with it, and he wouldn't be able to move, paralyzed. For the second time in less than a year, Judy Naylor is arrested for her role in an alleged murder plot. She outlined her plans ahead of time. You set out to kill somebody and then you do it and she did that. This by definition is first degree murder. Coming up, Judy tells her side of the story. When you've got two people who are on drugs, your minds don't work well together. That she was coerced, that she was threatened, this was not her idea.

Because of the evilness of the case, it qualifies for the death penalty. In a shocking turn of events, while awaiting trial for the attempted murder of her boss in North Carolina, Judy Naylor is charged with the murder of her stepfather and alleged lover, 62-year-old James Croxton. I didn't really know how to take all that and accept it, because James Croxton, I looked up to him. Judy was arrested, and she layered up and would not talk to us. While Judy awaits trial for the murder of James Croxton,

her husband, Donald McPhail, has his day in court for the embezzlement and attempted murder of Judy's boss a year earlier. Donald McPhail actually pled guilty to attempted first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, larceny of a firearm, fraud. And Donald McPhail received 10 to 13 years in prison. 15 years in prison. In April 2005, Judy heads to court for her role in the same crime. The theory that she proceeded with at trial was to try to blame it all on Donald, that

she was coerced, that she was threatened. This was not her idea. On April 27, 2005, Judy is convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and forgery. She is acquitted of the attempted murder of her boss. Judy received a 16 to 20 year sentence for her role in the crimes. I guess because she didn't pull the trigger. To this day, Judy claims she and Donald were not in their right minds. At one point in time, I had been on drugs from probably real strong, probably from whenever I met Donald Lee and when you've got two people who are on drugs, your minds don't work well together.

There was periods of time when I went as many as four to five days at a time with no sleep whatsoever. So to tell you that I was in the right state of mind or that I was thinking clearly at all with no sleep and with drugs in my system, I can't. On April 2, 2007, Judy is back in court, this time for the murder of James Croxton. To avoid possibly getting the death penalty, she chose to plead guilty to first degree murder, which has a mandatory sentence of life in prison. She received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. This sentence not even to begin until after the 16 or 20 year sentence that she had received for the shooting. While Judy admits to his murder, she still denies that she had a sexual relationship with her stepfather. I never, never ever, never had sex with Mr. Croxton. It wasn't until my mother died that he actually revealed his true feelings to me, and that

was that he had been in love with me since the first time that he danced with me when I was 17. Whenever we would talk from county jail and he was revealing all this to me, I found the perfect opportunity, of course, to play on those feelings and reciprocate on his feelings to get bonded out of jail. So I led, I led Mr. Croxton to believe that I could be his girlfriend. I never slept with the man and that was just something I could not do. Those close to the case believe Judy's need for money to fuel her addiction led her to do the unthinkable twice. She had manipulated this whole situation and her punishment was just and deserving and

Judy is where she needs to be. I have a lot of regret and a lot of remorse for both of my crimes. Do I think that the time that I got was just? Of course it was. I took another man's life. I didn't think my mother was capable of that, of doing something like that. Sorry things happened the way they did. Wish things would have been different.

Judy Naylor is currently serving her life sentence at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh, North Carolina. Donald McVeil served 13 years and five months in a North Carolina state prison. He was released in July of 2014. Hey everybody, we have some exciting news that we want to share. If you want to go on an adventure with Generation Y, we'd love for you to join us. January 26th through the 30th, 2026, we'll be sailing from Miami to the Bahamas on Wondry's first ever True Crime Cruise aboard the Norwegian Joy.

Aaron and I will be there to chat, hang out, dive into all things true crime, and we're thrilled to be joined by some familiar voices in the true crime podcasting world. Surti and Hannah from Red Handed, Sashi and Sarah from Scam Fluencers, and Karl Miller from Kill List. Super excited to hang out with them too. We've got some cool activities, interactive mysteries we can solve, testing our forensic skills with a blood spatter expert, and so much more.

So for some sun, fun, and just the right amount of mystery solving, come join us. If you'd like to know more and secure your spot, visit exhibitccruise.com for presale information.